The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916)

An early epic though, while undeniably impressive, is a bit long winded. With Naples enduring the cruel regime of Spain, the playboy son of the Viceroy (Douglas Gerrard) spies and takes a fancy to Fenella (Anna Pavlova), a mute peasant girl. 

He seduces and ravishes her, then the Viceroy (Wadsworth Harris) tries to get rid of her and the scandal by having her thrown in prison and whipped! Fenella's mistreatment sparks the populace in a revolt led by fisherman Masaniello (Robert Julian) which eventually brings down the Viceroy and his regime who do not have a happy ending...

While not a brilliant film it does have plenty of grand designs and grander staging. Pavlova (yes the dessert was named after her) was a famous ballerina and this was her only appearance in a feature film. Her appearances have the lightness and grace you would expect though the camerawork unfortunately often did not make the most of it. The film could have done with some heavy editing. But it is an interesting film and was quite an accomplishment.

The Phantom Express (1932)

An engaging early talkie. While in charge of a train, Smokey (J Farrell MacDonald) is forced to make an emergency brake when he thinks there is another train oncoming. The action results in his own train crashing. After an enquiry where it seems there was no other train involved Smokey is left in disgrace. Meanwhile the railway company owner's son Bruce (William Collier Jr) decides to stop his playboy activities and investigate the crash himself, mostly because he has a crush on Smokey's daughter Carolyn (Sally Blane).

Bruce, working undercover, discovers a nefarious scheme using an aeroplane with a light and loud speakers to trick train drivers into thinking another train is on the tracks. The plan is to force the railway owner Harrington (Hobart Bosworth) into selling the company to them...

A fast moving film with some decent (for their day) special effects. The dialogue might be a bit inaudible at times but the film flows very well and has plenty of thrills and spills. The bad guy's plot does stretch credibility a bit but that is a minor criticism.

At the Earth's Core (1976)

Dr Perry (Peter Cushing) and David (Doug McClure) head into solid rock using a giant tunnelling machine. The machine goes slightly wrong and they end up marooned in a strange new tropical world deep underground instead of Wales. It is a strange world inhabited by dinosaurs and girls in skimpy ragged outfits (so probably not Wales then). Perry and David end up captured and sent as slaves to the sinister Mahar, avian dinosaurs who control their underlings with psychic powers...

David fights his way to freedom, linking up with tribal leader Ra (Cy Grant) and falling for the lovely Dia (Catharine Munro). He and Perry unite the disparate human tribes to fight and destroy the Mahar. Then they can repair their tunnelling machine and head home happily for tea...

And it is all wonderful tosh with questionable (though at times pretty decent) special effects, cliched fights with beasts and weird monsters. Don't ask how the humans in this underground world can speak English though, it remains unexplained like much of the film!

Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1985)

A loose sequel to Deathstalker, though mostly through the use of recycled footage at the start. This is a lighter film though with boy wizards, fairly bloodless fighting and amusing dwarves instead of much in the way of female nudity and decapitations. Evil wizard Shurka (Thom Christopher) kills the good wizard (Edgardo Moreira) and takes over the kingdom. However, the wizard's son Simon (Vidal Peterson) manages to escape along with his friend who looks like he is wearing a cheap yeti fancy dress costume.

Simon befriends wandering warrior Kor (Bo Svenson), who is apparently a famous adventurer though he doesn't really show much in the way of fighting in this film, his hunt for booze is very impressive instead. Simon and Kor have to get back to the palace and find the ring of power before Shurka and his goons do. The fact the ring was lying in a corner of Shurka's spell chamber all along indicates the goons did not try very hard...

A terrible film but unintentionally hilarious and highly entertaining. The sets are cheap, as are the costumes and effects. The various beasts and monsters look like bargain items bought at a fancy dress store. The film's plot is basic but works well enough. The film is terrific nonsense.

The Dippy Dentist (1920)

A bright and breezy little comedy short. Fifi (Marie Mosquini) is pursued by various men but a new dentist (Snub Pollard) really makes a move for her, pushing aside his rival dentist Gaylord Lloyd (Harold's brother) with ease. Snub is also not averse to using laughing gas to subdue Fifi and have his way with her! 

Questionable morals aside, this is a decent enough farce which gets most of it's laughs from Pollard's interesting method of patient care and his roughhouse style in general. Not a great comedy short but perfectly passable.

Carnival Magic (1983)

Time for our 900th review!

Life at a low-rent seedy carnival with all it's questionable glamour; all mediocre acts, threadbare costumes and bored exploited animals. Stoney (Mark Weston) is the carnival owner and things aren't going very well; sales are down, his two main acts are fighting and he refuses to accept his daughter Ellen (Jennifer Houlton) is really a girl and calls her Bud instead. Tiger tamer Kirk (Joe Cirillo) doesn't like the magician Markov (Don Stewart) hanging around his big cats. He demands Stoney fires Markov...

But Markov has a secret, he is sharing his caravan with a talking chimp called Alex (Trudi the chimp) - well when we say talking it is mostly grunting with bad dubbing. With Alex the chimp now revealed, Markov is forced to include him in his act and the carnival's sales suddenly rise. Kirk is no longer top of the bill and sells Alex to an evil vivisectionist Dr Poole (Charles Reynolds)...

The film doesn't explain how Alex can talk and how Markov can read minds for real. That is the least of the film's problems though, It really isn't very good, though the sheer nonsense can be entertaining. There is a degree of farce, such as Alex stealing a car, and some drama - some of it quite dark. One high point is the fact Don Stewart - who admittedly was pretty buff in this - in most scenes is wearing less clothes than his chimp.

The Skull Murder Mystery (1932)

A rather baffling murder mystery. A skull is found in an alleyway between two houses, a man thought to have been killed some time before. Inspector Carr (John Hamilton) and Doctor Crabtree (Donald Meek) first interrogate the eccentric inhabitants of the one house, the Beck family (Harry Mestayer, Paul Guilfoye and Joanna Roos) who seem to be performing various strange scientific experiments and acting very strangely. In the other house is Chinese merchant Wang Run (Lee Tong Foo) who conveniently was away when it is thought the murder took place, he also has a number of rather sharp Oriental weapons...

Crabtree comes up with an ingenious way to try and scare a confession out of either suspect (the fact it could have been someone else entirely is somewhat overlooked). However, things come to a head when the Beck family try and do a runner and a groaning man is found in their attic...

A short feature which proceeds at a breakneck pace, unfortunately a little too quickly as much remains unexplained, for example what exactly were the Becks up to?! A fairly interesting if not especially that good crime film.